What God healed, revealed, and rebuilt in seven years of surrender
My name is Faith.
Before I was married, I spent seven years on an abstinence journey. And I want to be clear from the very beginning: it was never just about “not having sex.”
It was about coming back to God.
It was about healing.
It was about identity.
It was about learning intimacy the way Heaven defines it not the way trauma, religion, or culture taught me.
Growing Up in Church, But Not Fully Free
I grew up Baptist. Church wasn’t optional it was my whole life.
Sunday mornings. Wednesday nights. Choir rehearsal. Dance practice. Ushering. Announcements. Every ministry you can think of, I was in it.
My mother made sure of that.
But I was also raised in a very specific way especially as a girl. I was taught to be prim, proper, pure, prepared. I learned how to cook, clean, work, manage credit, and “carry myself.” Meanwhile, my brother was given freedom to make mistakes, explore, and learn life in real time.
That was the gender-role culture I grew up in, especially in the South.
So when I reached my early 20s and finally found myself on my own sheltered, inexperienced, and trying to figure out life, I felt behind. My friends had already lived. I was just getting started.
And somewhere along the way, I fell out of church not because I didn’t believe in God, but because I didn’t know how to sustain a relationship with Him outside of religion.
When my faith was tested, the waters won.
Trauma, Survival, and a Broken Sense of “Purity”
I carried trauma into adulthood. Sexual abuse from childhood, into my teenage years, and beyond. And growing up, purity was taught to me in one narrow way: don’t have sex.
So I believed that as long as I remained a virgin, I was “pure.”
That belief was a lie.
I was dissociating. I was coping in unhealthy ways. I was carrying sexual trauma in my body while thinking my outward behavior made me clean. The church talked about image more than fruit. Behavior more than healing. Appearance more than transformation.
I didn’t need more rules.
I needed restoration.
A Marriage I Wasn’t Supposed to Be In and the Wake-Up Call
Before my abstinence journey even began, I was in a marriage God told me not to enter.
I ignored Him.
I was drinking heavily. I was deeply unhealed. And even though my career was thriving while working in the medical field, excelling professionally I was drowning mentally and emotionally.
When that marriage ended, everything collapsed.
I lost friendships.
My family dynamics changed.
I felt like I was starting over just shy of 30 while everyone else was building.
I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t know what I wanted. And I knew something had to change.
The Moment Everything Shifted
Around age 27, I chose abstinence.
Not as punishment.
Not as performance.
But as surrender.
I realized that I couldn’t heal in the same environments that broke me. I couldn’t keep dating the same way, coping the same way, believing the same lies about myself.
Abstinence became the space where God stripped me gently but thoroughly.
Not just sexually, but emotionally. Mentally. Spiritually.
Religion vs. Relationship
When I found a church home again, something was different.
I wasn’t looking for hype.
I wasn’t looking for rules.
I was looking for depth.
I needed leadership that submitted to the Word of God not just tradition. I needed community. Intimacy. Truth.
God began to reveal to me how much of my faith had been rooted in religion instead of relationship. I had learned how to behave, but not how to abide.
“Study to show thyself approved” stopped meaning having the right answers and started meaning knowing God for myself so I could stand firm when life pressed me.
What Abstinence Actually Healed
Abstinence forced me to confront loneliness. The kind that drives you to entertain people you know God didn’t send.
It exposed my patterns:
Using attention to soothe abandonment
Using music, alcohol, or conversation to numb pain
Confusing desire with worth
I had to learn boundaries not just physical ones, but spiritual and emotional ones.
When I met my husband years into my journey, I told him plainly: I’m abstinent.
Not because it was my identity but because it was my posture.
Abstinence wasn’t the headline. God was.
Loneliness, Identity, and the God Who Sees Me
There were seasons when I was alone, truly alone.
A single mom.
No safety net.
No one to call for help.
And in those moments, God taught me His name: El Roi ( the God who sees me ).
When lies resurfaced “you’re not enough, you’re unwanted, you’re invisible” I had to speak truth out loud.
“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
I learned to take Scripture off the page and into my life. I wrote verses on a whiteboard. I prayed out loud in my apartment. I cried when I needed to. I stopped performing spirituality and started practicing intimacy.
Abstinence as Sanctification
Abstinence was never about being “strong enough” on my own.
That’s where people fail.
It was about partnering with the Holy Spirit asking God how to live clean, not just look clean.
Sex isn’t the only form of intimacy.
Music can be intimacy.
Conversation can be intimacy.
Emotional dependency can be intimacy.
What you allow into your space will eventually shape your spirit.
What I Know Now
Purity is not fear-based.
Purity is not image-based.
Purity is not about being untouched.
Purity is alignment.
It’s allowing God to rewrite your identity where trauma once spoke louder than truth. It’s grieving who you were, so you can fully become who He called you to be.
My abstinence journey ended when I got married, but the sanctification didn’t.
And honestly? I wouldn’t trade those seven years for anything.
A Final Word to You💜
If you’re considering abstinence or already walking it don’t do it just to “take sex off the table.”
Ask God what He wants to heal.
Ask Him what He wants to rebuild.
Ask Him how He defines intimacy.
Build companionship with the Holy Spirit first.
Everything else will follow.
With love,
Faith